Oct 19, 2013 – No Line 9! When: Saturday, October 19th — 12noon Where: Toronto Metro Convention Centre (255 Front Street West)
Enbridge is trying to pipe tar sands bitumen through Southern Ontario and Quebec, threatening the health and safety of our communities and waterways, and allowing for the expansion of the most destructive project on the planet, the tar sands. Enbridge’s Line 9 is a 38-year old pipeline that is almost identical in build and age to the Line 6 pipeline that ruptured in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. In total, Line 9 passes within 50 km of an estimated 9.1 million people, including 18 First Nation communities, and directly through 99 towns and cities. But instead of opposing or even carefully considering Enbridge’s proposal to send tar sands through aging infrastructure, the project is being pushed through without as much as an environmental assessment. In fact, the National Energy Board (NEB) is doing everything it can to shut out voices from the public in the approval process, while First Nations communities say that they have not been consulted. From October 16 to 19, the National Energy Board will hold hearings in Toronto, but only pre-approved intervenors are allowed to speak.
When our voices are muted by government, the streets become our megaphone. Indigenous communities, environmentalists and labour groups have united to oppose the tar sands pipelines going west and south, and we need a similarly impressive display of mass opposition to any such proposal to transport tar sands east. Stopping the Line 9 Pipeline Reversal and moving toward a clean energy economy with green jobs would be a multiple “win” – a win for communities, jobs, farms, the environment, public health, and for our long-term energy security. Join us October 19th outside the NEB hearings as we say “No Line 9! No Tar Sands Pipelines!”.
For more information, please see this 13 min. video (Preview)
PlayLine 9: The Tar Sands Come to Ontario
Rachel Deutsch
Line 9 was built in 1975 to transport imported oil from Montreal to refineries in Sarnia. Enbridge has now applied to Canada’s National Energy Board to reverse its direction of flow so that it can transport oil from Sarnia to Montreal. Enbridge admits that among the possible uses of Line 9 is transporting “heavy oil” a category that includes bitumen, the hazardous raw material extracted from tar sands. The pipeline passes through cities, watersheds, rivers, and farmland. 9.1 million people live within 50 km of line 9, including 18 first nations communities and 115 communities in total. (Sarnia, Hamilton, North York, Kingston, etc.) Enbridge has a very poor record of environmental impact. Between 1999 and 2008, Enbridge lists 610 spills that released approximately 21 million litres of hydrocarbons into the surrounding area. But Enbridge is most well-known for their 3.8 million litre spill in Kalamazoo Michigan in 2010, amounting to the largest inland oil spill in US history. Because the spill involved the very hard to clean tar sands bitumen rather than conventional crude oil, the clean-up is still on-going. Meanwhile to this day, residents are still sick from the aftermath of the spill, and tragically many have died since. Most troubling for Ontario residents is that the pipeline that ruptured in Kalamazoo is almost identical to Line 9: it is part of the same pipeline network, uses the same interior lining, and is almost the same age. With so much at risk, we need to work together to stop Enbridge Line 9. The big picture is spills, contamination, and expanding the tar sands. The even bigger picture is climate change. If it is not halted, climate change will and is resulting in increased frequency and severity of storms, floods, drought, and water shortage, as well as the spread of disease, increased hunger, displacement and mass migrations of people and ensuing social conflict and war. For more information and to get involved: facebook.com/RisingTideToronto facebook.com/PeopleVersusLine9 stopline9-toronto.ca/ Facebook: Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against Pipelines (ASAP) ienearth.org/ facebook.com/AntiTrailbreaker pipeupagainstenbridge.ca/ (focus on B.C.) Video by Rachel Deutsch Music by Ozere (facebook.com/ozereband) Narration by Darren Schilling Script development: Sakura Saunders Research: Sakura Saunders, Dave Vasey, Toban Black, Rachel Deutsch, and Alexander Knight Footage of Kalamazoo coverup: John Bolenbaugh. For more of his footage: HELPPA.org Sources: Polaris Institute, Indigenous Environmental Network, The Media Co-op, The People Versus Line 9
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